B.A. and M.A. Theses

Available Advisors for B.A. and M.A. Theses at the Department of English I (ES I) include:

• Prof. Dr. Heinz Antor (Postcolonial Literature, British Literature)
• PD Dr. Marlena Tronicke (British Literature and Culture, Gender and Queer Studies)
• Prof. Dr. Andrea Gutenberg (British and American Literature and Culture)
• Jun.-Prof. Dr. Judith Rauscher (North American Literature and Culture)
• PD Dr. Johanna Pitetti-Heil (American Studies, Gender and Diversity Studies)

If you want to write your final thesis with an instructor, send them an email that includes the following information:

• your full name and student ID
• the topic(s) you are interested in/your preliminary topic (f. ex. human-nature relations, race and reproduction, or questions of resistance).
• the authors/artists and/or the primary works you would like to write about (f. ex. novel XY, or poems by poet AB)
• when you want to start writing your thesis and when you plan on handing it in (so potential adivsors can check their availabilities)

Please get in contact with potential advisors via email as early in the process as possible to ask whether your instructors are available for supervision. 

Please note that JProf. Rauscher only supervises final theses that focus on North American literature and culture/topics related to the United States and Canada (in some cases Mexico, the Caribbean, or the Pacific). Once JProf. Rauscher has agreed to supervise your thesis, you can book a slot in her office hours via the scheduler to discuss your ideas in more detail. You should discuss your topic at least once with your advisor during their office hours before registering your final thesis.

Before deciding on the topic of your final thesis, please check out the handouts and recommendations for writing term papers on this page. While you need to adapt the number of pages mentioned in the "5-Part-Essay" handout to the required length of your respective final thesis and while some topics demand a different structure, the 5-part structure suggested here is useful to develop an interesting thesis topic. It encourages you to think about how relevant contexts (framing) and concepts (theory) can help you to produce an insightful analysis of your chosen primary work. Contexts and concepts set the stage for your analysis and define the terms of the argument presented in your paper. The choice of framing and theory should thus make sense in relation to your analysis and help your reader to understand your argument.

You can find a list of selected final theses (B.A. and M.A.) that other students have written with Jun.-Prof. Dr. Judith Rauscher here.